Monday, October 8, 2012

Online Places We Can Draw

I love the number of websites that provide a place for kids (and adults!) to draw. If you have a portable device such as an iPad, there are lots of apps that do this too. But today, I'd like to tell you about a couple of online spaces for drawing.

DoSketch

DoSketch has a nice uncluttered interface that consists of a white canvas, with colour palette, sizer, and toolbar to the side. The toolbar has a text feature, filled circles and rectangles that can change colour, empty circles and rectangles and a pencil. The colour palette has a nice range of colours, or you can pre-set a colour if you know its hexadecimal code. Once done, you can save and download, or get a url for sharing and there is no need to register for any of this! No fill bucket, sadly, but plenty of tools for kids to experiment.

DrawIsland

DrawIsland is a little more cluttered than DoSketch but it's still in Beta, so that might change. The Minimalist version of DrawIsland (change at the top of the page) is less cluttered. Both are quite intuitive, but in the Minimalist version, the toolbar is simpler and underneath the canvas, with no labels to explain tools. There's a fill bucket, but it won't fill shapes, just flood the whole page. Adding text is a feature here too, making it a web space where we can encourage kids to play with both words and images. The Save button would only work for me on the Minimalist version.

ArtPad

ArtPad is an even simpler drawing tool. That means it has less functions: you can paint with a brush, throw paint at the canvas (whee!) and add text to your image. The simplicity might make it easier for younger kids. I know I had fun there. When done, you can save by sending an email to a friend, which automatically send the image to you as well.